Commentary
of the Day - July 21, 2001: Charter Homeschool Funding - The California
Debate.

Right now there
is a bit of a "dust-up" taking place in the California State Legislature
over the issue of funding for homeschool charters. For those readers
who may not be familiar with all the various incarnations of charter schools,
homeschool charters are schools that have been chartered by a school district
or county board of education to provide services for students who are being
home schooled (usually by a parent).

Under the California
charter laws these homeschool charters have been receiving the same amount
of per pupil funding from the state as other schools based on the
"average daily attendance" figures for the operation. This amount,
typically, is about $5,000 per student. A number of critics have
pointed out the potential for profiteering inherent in this arrangement.
Since these homeschool charters have no school sites to maintain and do
not need to hire teachers, they can operate with far lower overhead than
either regular public schools or site-based charter schools.

State senator
Jack O'Connell, a Democrat from San Luis Obispo who has been active in
school reform efforts, added an amendment to this year's state budget legislation
that would reduce the funding for homeschool charters by 30%. This
money would be transferred to site-based charters in low-income neighborhoods.
If this amendment receives final approval approximately 90 charter schools
(about one-third of all the charters in California) would be affected.

O'Connell's move
was prompted by reports in The San Francisco Chronicle of abuses
taking place in the HomeSmartKids school that operates under a charter
granted by the tiny Knightsen school district in Contra Costa County.
According to the story
by Chronicle reporter Nanette Asimov, HomeSmartKids is a for-profit
operation that, until recently, was run by former school principal Rod
Pocock and his accountant wife Joslyn. HomeSmartKids
provided the family of each enrolled student up to $1,500 to cover the
costs of books, supplies, and field trips. Part of the remaining
funds were used to pay "certificated teachers" whose job it was to check
on students' work and to provide advice and help to the parents who did
the actual teaching. However, a fairly large chunk of the funds went
to pay the Pococks a salary ($25,000 each) and their company a management
fee of 37.5%.

The management
fee, which was scheduled to rise to 43.5% in three years, brought in more
than $500,000. Part of this money went to cover office expenses (the
school was run out of an office at the Delta Christian School in Antioch,
CA) and wages for two clerks who earn $13 per hour. Mr. Pocock has
declined to provide detailed information about rental costs and other office
expenses. However, given that the school enrolls only 300 students
and has only two office employees, it is doubtful that as much as $100,000
is needed to cover that part of the operation. This means that there
is more than $400,000 unaccounted for. The Pococks claimed through
their attorney, according to the Chronicle story that as a private
company they were not required to account for how the management fee was
spent.

Sen. O'Connell
and others have cited this example along with some other questionable practices
by homeschool charters as the main reason to reduce public funding for
them unless they can clearly justify full funding. O'Connell's main
argument is that California's charter school program was intended to help
parents, teachers and and school districts to establish public charter
schools that would improve education -- not to provide an opportunity for
quick profit.

The Irascible
Professor agrees in part with Sen. O'Connell. Clearly, there is a
need to ensure that public funds that are being used to support homeschool
charters are being spent appropriately. However, O'Connell's proposal
to reduce funding by 30% should be considered only a stopgap measure.
Homeschool charters are inherently different than regular charter schools.
The Legislature needs to formulate regulations for homeschool charters
that ensure that there is accountability for how public funds are spent
to support these operations. The charter laws are intended to free
schools from much of the bureaucracy associated with regular schools.
However, there needs to be some minimal rules to ensure that the level
of state funding for homeschool charters is rationally related to the actual
costs of education, and that the bulk of the funds actually are being used
to support educational activities. In addition, there are two other
issues that need to be examined. Since many, though not all, parents
who homeschool their children do so for religious reasons, the Legislature
should establish regulations that ensure that taxpayer funds are being
used to support only educational activities by homeschool charters.
Finally, there needs to be educational as well as fiscal accountability
for homeschool charters.